Olympics

The use of stopwatches to time Olympic events began at the first Modern Games in 1896 and ended in the 1960s with the coming of electronic timekeeping. Touch pads were quicker than timers’ thumbs and electric eyes became more reliable than human eyes. But these workhorse timers that fit so nicely in hand deserve more than a passing note. We take a look back at some Olympic moments during the golden era of mechanical timekeeping.

OMEGA has long commemorated their connection to the Olympics by producing special edition pieces in honor of the games and their host city. Often serving as snapshots for a piece OMEGA's lineup at the time of the games, these Olympic editions incorporate special coloring, dial and case back designs -- and there have been plenty of great ones, including this year's.

Packing for a trip to Russia for the Sochi Olympics is no small feat. There's weather, international travel, technology and a desire to stay light on our feet to consider. Gear needs to be tough, functional, lightweight and understated. Here's a sampling of what we're packing to use on a normal day in Sochi.

“We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.” These were the hopeful words of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a man born on the tail end of the industrial revolution, where we as a species first grasped the true, constructive, and destructive...

When most folks think of the Olympics they think of amateur athletes from around the world coming together in the spirit of good sportsmanship to pit their skills against the best-of-the-best for a shot at the gold. For die-hard watch aficionados, however, we think of OMEGA. That’s right, we think of a watch company. Why...

It’s hard to believe the 2012 summer Olympics are already upon us. While this year’s events will feel familiar, the athletes and venues have unquestionably evolved. The same holds true for the technology used to capture, record and share their feats with the globe. Long gone are the games of stark naked athletes, replaced by...

This summer marks the 20th anniversary of the “Dream Team.” Loaded with established legends from an earlier era like Bird & Magic, as well as a rocketing star in Michael Jordan — and let’s not forget about college boy Laettner — they became one of, if not the greatest teams ever assembled in the history...

The world cup is still a couple of summers away, and the Olympic-level soccer competition may not be the international stop gap U.S. men’s fans had hoped for, but Nike’s new US National Soccer Team Kits are still enough to get our inner footballer stoked. Both men’s and women’s jerseys are identical, and are modeled...

The roof of the London 2012 Olympic Velodrome was designed to reflect the very events it would house. Its curved and contoured shape is a three-dimensional representation of the geometry of cycling. While Ron Webb remains the go-to designer for Olympic cycling pavilions, the skilled architects at Hopkins were able to deliver 230,000 square feet...

Who doesn’t love the Olympics? Well, instead of having the multicolored rings emblazoned on your hairy chest while rooting for your favorite Olympian, why not don something a few notches up on the classy scale? For the 2012 Olympic games in London, Omega commemorates the 25th time they have acted as the Official Timekeeper of...

Much like Tony Hawk’s name has become synonymous with the world of skate boarding, Shaun White defines the sport of snowboarding for many fans. This year’s Winter Olympics have given Shaun a grand stage, upon which took the gold medal in the Men’s Halfpipe event earlier this week. Astoundingly, it was a never-before-seen maneuver that...

What the Gear Patrol Editors Are Watching DVR’ing Lets hope the air in Beijing isn’t flammable (ESPN) NBC is showing that Americans do things big and we do it like no one else. With 3,600 hours of high definition video (2,200 hours of it streamed and archived online), NBC is going for its own gold....